St George’s Catholic Primary School Council has had a School Parliament for a number of years now and their role is constantly evolving. Here a group of pupils are elected by their peers to represent the views of all pupils and to improve their school. From this parliament a ‘cabinet’ will be elected. Some of these children hold titles such as Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, mentor etc.  The School Parliament meets, at least once every half-term, to discuss and sort out problems. These may include school lunches, behaviour or ideas for special events.

Members of the School Parliament will be responsible for carrying out the ideas that have been agreed, such as: who to invite to science week; improving the learning environment, or planning new playground activities.

Being a school parliamentarian is a really responsible job and it does mean that every child learns a lot from taking part.

Our School

We want our school to be the kind of school that everyone enjoys coming to, where everyone knows and understands each other. We want it to be a cheerful place, where we look after everyone. We want you to have ‘faith in growing and grow in faith’

We want it to be a safe place where children can be trusted to be sensible, because everyone follows the class and school rules and expectations and lives by the school values (Trust, Respect, Faith, Forgiveness, Aspiration, Determination, Curiosity. We want everyone to be honest, have good manners and to treat people and possessions with respect.

We want to be proud of our work and try our best every day, so we do well with our learning by following our learning DRAGON code so we are the best that we can be. We will keep going when things are challenging and listen carefully to each other. We want to find out interesting and useful things about the world.

If everyone can do this we will remember the great time we had at St George’s with our friends, for the rest of our lives.

What is our School Parliament for?

The School Parliament is about:

• Working and learning together
• Learning about democracy
• Learning how to play a positive role model in our community
• Improving our school for everyone

The School Parliament’s job is to involve everyone, not do everything. Everybody needs to help by:

•  Finding things that they would like to change
•  Finding ways to make things better
•  Putting their ideas into actions

How does our Class Parliament work?

•  Each class will elect 2 School Parliament members
•  Our Class members of parliament will have a class forum every Half-Term
•  The class decide what they are going to talk about the day before the meeting so that everybody has time to think. They do this by checking the class suggestion box where ideas have been posted and individual learning logs.
•   The two School Parliament Members from each class will go to the School Parliament meeting every half term to put across the classes view.

What will the School Parliament do for our class?

•  After the class forum where the class share ideas with class member of school parliament they will:
  •  Take it to the next School Parliament meeting to discuss
  •  Tell you what is happening with your idea

The School Parliament will try to make your idea happen by getting:

•  Permission
•  Money
•  Support
•  Time

If they cannot make the idea happen there will be clear reasons why this cannot happen.

If they can make your idea happen they will need your help to make it happen.

What will staff do for the School Parliament?

•  Make sure meetings happen when they are supposed to
•  Support pupils to run meetings

Staff role in Class Parliament Meetings

• Ensure that there is time given for meetings during CLS time.
•  Initially model chairing a meeting
•  Support class discussions

Elections for School Learning Council members will take place the week commencing the 21st September 2020. If you would like to put yourself forward to represent your class on the council, then please prepare a 2 minute presentation. Your presentation should outline the skills you have that will help you succeed in this role and why your class mates should vote for you.

Skills that make you a good school council member:

• Good listener.
• Sensitive speaker.
• Trustworthy.
• Helpful.
• Committed.
• Reliable.
• Honest.
• A good role model.
• Able to work in a team.
• Ability to share good ideas.
• Ability to discuss and not argue.
• A willingness to develop skills such as confidence, communications and negotiation.

Congratulations to our new 2020 Learning Parliament members! We will be electing our Chair and Vice chair in the next 2 weeks so watch this space!

Class 5- Issey and Joel

Class 6- Emilia and Arlow

Class 7- Sophia and Makoyo

Class 8- Junior and Isla

Class 9 - Ibrahim and Erin

Class 10- Ismail and Safa

Class 11- Martin and Amelia

Class 12 - Dylan and Emmie

St George's Learning Council